Prospective Associations of Obesity and Obesity Severity With 9 Cardiovascular Outcomes: The Cross-Cohort Collaboration
Authors' conclusion
Higher BMI was robustly associated with increased risk for most outcomes, particularly HF and AF, even after adjusting for traditional risk factors.
Study context
- Population
- Adults with body mass index (BMI) ≥18.5 kg/m² from 21 cohorts of the Cross-Cohort Collaboration enrolled 1948–2015 (mean age 60.3 years; 79.2% women)
- Participants
- 289,875 adults21 cohorts
- Exposure
- BMI categories vs normal weight
- Outcome
- 9 CV outcomes: Myocardial infarction (MI), stroke, heart failure (HF), atrial fibrillation (AF), total coronary heart disease (CHD), total CVD, CHD mortality, CVD mortality, all-cause mortality
- Follow-up
- Median 19.2 years
Methodological details21 cohorts, multivariable Cox models with restricted cubic splines
- 21 cohorts
- Multivariable Cox models with restricted cubic splines
Main finding
As reported in the abstract
Each group vs normal weightHazard ratio (95% CI)
Class 2 obesityHF
2.1(2.0–2.3)
Class 3 obesityHF
3.0(2.7–3.2)
Class 2 obesityAF
1.8(1.7–2.0)
Class 3 obesityAF
2.8(2.5–3.1)
Observational data: associations, not effects.
Further findings
Stroke, cardiovascular disease (CVD) and all-cause mortality by sex (subgroup)
- Women had higher relative increases in risk with severe obesity than men for stroke, CVD and all-cause mortality
- interaction P <0.001, 0.003, <0.001
- Men: no increase in stroke risk with higher BMI categories
- P for trend = 0.49
- Women: stroke risk plateaued across obesity subclasses yet remained significantly increased vs normal weight
Original publication
Prospective Associations of Obesity and Obesity Severity With 9 Cardiovascular Outcomes: The Cross-Cohort Collaboration. Circulation. Published 12 February 2026. doi:10.
Composed by AI from the published abstract and checked against it. How Briefs are made →